Sawatch

Avalanche

John Mackinnon ยท Feb 3, 2016

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Weather

Cloudy skies, frigid temps, light westerly winds with some stronger gusts and intermittent blowing snow near and below TL.

Snowpack

Toured in Ball Mountain area on S,SW,W and N aspects up to 11,800 ft. We found approximately 25 cm of storm snow in undisturbed areas. The snowpack is still not very supportive of a rider's weight on most of the below TL aspects we visited. The bottom 1/2 of the snowpack is faceted and weak--even on many sunny slopes below treeline--with boot penetration to the ground. CTs routinely produced sudden drops in the depth hoar at the bottom of the snowpack in profiles on SW aspect at 11,400 ft-CTM (SC) x 3 on DH up 20 cm. An ECT did show propagation on facets below the Jan. crust in one of our profiles--ECTP 11 on FC down 45 cm. Both groups experienced cracking on all aspects we visited and some collapsing when we ventured into north facing terrain.

Avalanche

We did observe several small slab avalanches on a northerly of aspects below treeline. All were D1 in size and broke on convexities.